Centralized systems are here to stay, says Binance CEO CZ

Binance CEO CZ debates Ponzi schemes, DeFi and how Binance chooses coins for listing in a New Year video.

In a tongue-in-cheek hot seat video to round off 2021, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, or “CZ,” responded to a series of curated Tweets from the Binance community.

The Chinese-Canadian business executive’s standout message was that centralized exchanges such as Binance would remain relevant in 2022 and beyond.

Riposting to a loaded tweet about centralized finance’s dark side as well as the future of decentralized finance, CZ said, “Today, we still need the centralized systems to integrate with the traditional financial industry so that we can bring the money into and out of crypto.”

He caveated the sentiment with reference to the cryptocurrency market as still being a nascent industry, prone to “hackers, Ponzi schemes and scammers.”

Keen readers will remember one of 2021’s legendary rug pulls, the Squid Game token (SQUID), which clocked a 45,000% gain before dumping. In early November, Binance launched an inquiry into the token to trace funds associated with the epic pump-and-dump.

Inevitably, when prompted about favoritism toward certain blockchain projects, or even coins that, according to one Twitter user, are “totally fake,” CZ set the record straight:

“Binance lists about six or seven hundred coins out of probably 6 million coins. So only one in 10,000 coins that’s ever created gets listed on Binance. That’s about 0.01%. It is a very small number.”

While coin selection is a moot issue, tighter management of centralized exchanges (CEX) has been rife during 2021. No strangers to compliance, Binance Turkey was recently fined 8 million liras for non-compliance against money laundering, while CEXs as a whole came under pressure in August this year.

Related: Binance to finalize acquisition of Swipe, paving for CEO exit

In terms of the group’s growth, Binance now numbers over 90 million users worldwide, dwarfing its team of “a couple of thousand Binancians.” 2021 goes out with a bang, as regulatory approvals in Canada and Bahrain will bring Binance services to more crypto enthusiasts across the globe.

CZ, meanwhile, will continue to hodl his two favorite coins, Binance Coin (BNB) and Bitcoin (BTC). Reaching 36 on Cointelegraph’s Top 100 Notable People in Blockchain in 2021, he wishes us all a Happy New Year and said he would “continue to work on Binance users’ feedback in 2022.”